Home Projects: Painting Trim

As I mentioned before, our house was built in the 1970s. One thing that clearly marks this is the beautiful, if very dated, red oak trim. This isn’t put in newer homes, so the fact that ours has it, marks it as something not yet updated.

Actually, the wallpaper was worse when we first bought the house.

So, we decided to paint the trim in my daughter’s room white. Well, not actually white, because paint stores don’t make on white. A very slight off-white. Silky white to be exact.

I did lots of reading about it how to do it online, watched a few tutorial, and said, “Hold my iced tea.” Yeah, I don’t drink beer. I went to college in New Orleans, and that spoiled me with hurricanes and other tasty alcoholic beverages that tasted like Kool-Aid.

So I went down and bought the sander, primer, new brushes, paint, and I started a test patch behind my daughter’s dresser. When I opened the paint can, I noticed it had a strong smell, but I haven’t painted in many years, so I figured it was just the smell of paint.

Only it wasn’t.

The primer turned out to be oil based.

What did I tell you about me and home improvement projects?

He has clearly not seen my home improvement skills.

When I tried to clean it up, it wouldn’t come off my brand new brush. Nor would it come off my hands. *sigh*

I did the best I could, quickly learning that nail polish removed was NOT up to the task.

My hands were white, the brush ruined, and only a small section primed. Not my best day.

I ended up rubbing Cetaphil cream all over my hands and sticking them in nitrile cleaning gloves for thirty minutes. The paint came off my skin, and while it had still “painted” my fingernails, it was only noticeable to me so I left it.

Less messy than mine.

However, certain lessons were learned, and we took a second try at it.

This time, I bought foam brushes I could toss for the priming, and I saved the new paintbrush for the latex paint. I had mineral spirits ready and waiting to go, though even the odorless ones aren’t so odorless.

My husband finished priming while I watched the girls on Saturday as they both desperately wanted in the room, and neither of us wanted them by the oil-based primer. We then took turns applying the paint the next day.

All in, it took two to three coats or primer and two to three coats of paint. But it looks really nice now.

On to stage two. Painting her room light purple. Or violet mist. Or whatever strange name Sherwin Williams has devised.

How about you? Ever had a home project go not as expected? Or maybe one went exactly as expected. There’s a change! Ever paint trim? How’d it go?

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Comments

Painting is not something I enjoy but can do reasonably well. A project requiring two attempts was installing new banisters along the stairs. First time I used pin nails I shot into the balisters. They held for a time, until grandchildren started swinging on the banisters. Second time, I used screws installed from the bottom of the baseboard. They still hold after six months, in spite of grandkids coming regularly.

Ugh, I hate painting! You can decorate our house next! LOL!!! Sounds like your 70’s house is as quirky as mine! I found several electrical outlets that were actually hidden compartments in ours. Heck, one of them even had weed with mold on it!

Wow!! We’ve never found anything that interesting. I did find a whole wall where the electrical outlets didn’t work. Paid an electrician to come deal with it, and he said some do-it-yourselfer had wired it and it was all done wrong. That was an expensive fix!